Cat Out of the Bag
by RiddleKitty
Summary: Young Nyancy Chan meets a fellow animal enthusiast and discovers her special ability isn't just part of her wild imagination.


**Disclaimer: I** own nothing from the show.

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**Cat Out of the Bag**

The sun poured down from overhead, perfect white clouds dotting a vivid blue sky. A warm breeze blew gently through the trees along the roadside.

This wasn't the type of gorgeous weather to be stuck in a doctor's appointment getting vaccinations, but Nyancy had endured, and now she and Mr. Snowball were off to get ice cream. Her cherubic face pressed against the window of her mother's car as it rolled down the street, headed toward the local Tasty Frosty. Nyancy licked her lips eagerly, removing remnants of cherry lip balm while Mr. Snowball craned his fuzzy neck to look at the pedestrians making their way around like they had no time to stop and smell the sweet summer air.

"I can almost taste that Pink Bubblegum with a splash of strawberry syrup, Mr. Snowball," she said to the white Himalayan in her lap. Mr. Snowball meowed in agreement, curling his tail.

"Well then, he'll just have to make new copies," Nyancy's mother said from the driver's seat. "Hang on a second, will you." She lowered the cellular phone from her ear briefly, glancing into the mirror to better view her daughter in the back seat. "Nancy, honey, I just remembered, I have to make a quick stop at the hardware store to pick up a socket wrench for your father. Then we'll get ice cream."

Nyancy scrunched her nose. Hardware stores weren't exactly her favorite place. They were noisy and smelled bad, and—worst of all—they didn't allow pets. "Aw, mom! I hate the hardware store. The smell is so barf it makes me wanna puke. Can I wait outside with Mr. Snowball, please?"

"You can wait in the _car_ with Mr. Snowball if you don't want to come in."

"But mo~ooom! It's such a nice day out, how can you expect us to stay trapped in this steel and polyester prison for much longer!" Nyancy's arms flailed about dramatically. She folded them, hunching. "And it's _Nyancy._"

"That's not what it says on your birth certificate," her mother said, slowing down for a red light "And you're not old enough to wait outside without supervision. Wait a few more years until our Trust System advances to locations and curfews, then we'll talk."

"And when will _that_ be?"

"Oh, I don't know. When you're in your mid-to-late teens."

Nyancy's face contorted in horror. "Mom! I'll be an old woman by then!"

Her mother raised the phone back to her ear, signaling _conversation paused_ until otherwise noted. Nyancy sighed and went back to staring out the window.

"Trust System, shmust system!" she muttered under her breath. "I tell ya, Mr. Snowball, all these rules and regulations are really bringing me down!" Mr. Snowball meowed in agreement.

The car pulled into the small parking lot in front of the little Mom and Pop store. Nyancy's mother rolled down the windows before pulling out her keys and grabbing her purse. "I'll only be a few minutes." She eyed Nyancy with a firm look. "No moving from this car. All right, young lady?"

"Yes," Nyancy said, frowning. "Ma'am," Nyancy added, giving a solemn salute.

Nyancy watched her mother hurry off, soon vanishing beyond the double doors. With a sigh, she sat back in her seat and closed her eyes, trying to inhale all the fresh air she could manage through the window. She smiled, feeling Mr. Snowball walk onto her lap again. Her fingers slipped over his long fur and she gave him a brisk rubbing.

"Don't worry, Mr. Snowball. They say the longer you wait for something, the sweeter it will be." She popped her eyes back open, taking Mr. Snowball's chubby, fluffy face in her hands and squeezing it lovingly. "And there's nothing already as sweet as Pink Bubblegum with a splash of strawberry syrup, is there, Mr. Snowball? No there isn't. No there isn't!"

Mr. Snowball's tail lashed back and forth happily as he purred in response to Nyancy's cooes and cuddles. She released him after a moment. He went back to the window to meow at a group of feeding pigeons on the sidewalk.

Abruptly, he stopped in mid-meow, his ears flat and his body stiff as a board. Mr. Snowball tilted his head to one side, then the other.

Nyancy looked around, curiously, seeing nothing particularly amiss or of interest. "Huh? What is it, Mr. Snowball?" She gasped when Mr. Snowball bounced off her raised knees and toward the open window. "Hey!" Nyancy reached forward to grab Mr. Snowball as he wiggled his body over the edge of the window. She missed his tail by inches, watching in shock as he landed on the ground and dashed away with a brief meow. "Someone's calling you? But! But! You can't just go running off like this!"

Groaning while she debated, Nyancy's head snapped toward the door of the hardware store, then back to Mr. Snowball as he continued to walk hastily farther from her vision. Her mother was going to come back out at any moment. But she couldn't just let Mr. Snowball wander off on his own. She unlocked the passenger side door and stepped out.

"Mr. Snowball! Hey! Heeeey!"

He didn't answer, and he didn't stop.

"What's the deal?" Nyancy shut the door and brushed her rumpled purple skirt down. She pushed her thick-rimmed glasses back up the bridge of her nose with a finger and then placed her hands on her hips. "I hope you realize I'm gonna lose like twenty Trust Points, thanks to this!"

Not wasting more time with complaints, she ran off after Mr. Snowball, down the street and toward the alleyway he'd seen him head into. When she got there, she found out she was not alone. Something odd was going on. Something odd, yet interesting.

Very interesting, indeed.

"Mr. Snowball?" Nyancy's eyes surveyed the darkened alley, where half a dozen cats had congregated, with more showing up now and then. A symphony of meows and yowls surrounded her as she walked in between them, trying to move forward. "Wow! What is this, a party? Did somebody leave some lobster bisque in the dumpster behind Danny's Crab Shack?!"

The cats were relatively calm. Nyancy could feel the same amount of curiosity radiating from them as was her own. It was like they'd been called to a meeting or something. She continued forward, looking among the collection of cats for Mr. Snowball. She looked up when she heard a man's voice in the distance. His speech was indiscernible to her ears from such a distance, but he sounded quite lively about whatever it was he was talking about. The man let out a triumphant laugh through the chorus of loud meows.

Nyancy reached the end of the alley way and found him standing in the middle of the group of strays. He looked a bit disheveled, his already shabby clothes not exactly in the best of order. Over them, he wore a metal chest plate with a big dial on it, and he had a bunch of electronic devices hanging off his belt. On his head he wore a helmet, or something like one. It looked like a pasta drainer with a bunch of added mechanical doohickeys on it, including a set of green horn-like things with red tips. His hair was almost snow-white in color and spilled over his shoulders as he leaned down to inspect Mr. Snowball.

"Mr. Snowball!" Nyancy gasped, watching the man pick up her precious kitty.

"Well, what have we here? You don't look like your average stray. No, you look like a domestic." He ran a finger with a very claw-like nail across the tags on Mr. Snowball's purple collar. The man smiled as Mr. Snowball mewed softly. It faded when he heard the smack of little Nyancy's gym shoes on the pavement rapidly approaching his position.

"Hey! What do ya think you're doing with my kitty?!"

The cats turned their heads in unison to witness the newcomer, their eyes following her as she moved to confront the man. His eyes widened behind the red-lensed goggles he wore.

"That's _my _Mr. Snowball! I won't let you hurt him, or any of these kitties, Mr. Man!" Nyancy clenched her small fist.

"Where did you come from?" the man asked with a pleasant curiosity in his tone.

"That's none of your business, buster!" She raised a hand in the air and snapped her fingers. "Mr. Snowball! To me!"

Mr. Snowball's head immediately swiveled in her direction. He wiggled his way out from the man's gloved hands, dropped to the ground, and ran back to his master. Nyancy's eyes glowed briefly, her pupils slitting. At once, the entire cat collective of the alley backed away from the man, a few hissing at him as they left. All of them obediently came to Nyancy's side.

Nyancy gave Mr. Snowball a scolding look, tapping her foot as he sidled up to her, his tail curling. "I can't believe you just went running off like that!"

Mr. Snowball meowed.

"Well, have you never heard the phrase, "Don't talk to strangers," buddy? This guy could be a serial cat-napper for all you know!"

Mr. Snowball meowed again, looking at the ground.

"Oh! You have it too. And so young."

The cats stood their ground. Nyancy turned to see the man had walked up behind her. She gasped. "What? What do I have? Is it contagious?!" She placed her hands to the sides of her face, suddenly more terrified of catching some incurable disease than of the strange old guy.

He knelt beside her, his hands splayed out as he spoke. "Zoopathy," he said in a low tone.

He placed a hand on her shoulder, to which Nyancy flinched but did not draw away from. She felt all the cats at ease, including Mr. Snowball, informing her the man was no threat to her. He was just weird.

"I had it too at your age, but I didn't even realize it until much later on. It is a rare manifestation, one that only affects an extremely low percentage of the human populace."

"Zoo... zoo... what?" She blinked, looking up at him.

"You have the ability to commune with, and even influence the behavior of animals," he said, smiling with a mouthful of very pointed teeth.

"I do?" Nyancy blinked again.

"Indeed. Why, you demonstrated this power a few moments ago, when you called all of these cats to you." The man gestured at the group of cats, now surrounding her instead of him. "Tell me, child-"

"It's Nyancy."

"Very well then. Tell me, Nyancy, do you feel that slight tug at the back of your mind when you mentally _talk_ to your cat friends?" He tapped the side of his helmet for emphasis.

"Um, yeah. Sort of!"

"That is the stirrings of your budding zoopathy." He raised his clawed hands up and squeezed them into fists. "Like any muscle, you can harness and strengthen that power to great lengths, increasing its potential, and use it to influence or fully control any species of animal to do your bidding. Or, you know," he shrugged, "just have engaging conversations with them."

"R-really? Wow!" Stunned, Nyancy mulled over the news. Her mother had never believed she could talk to cats, but it turned out to be a real thing after all. And she'd finally met somebody else who could do it too. That proved it was real. Didn't it? "So, you mean, I'm like... special?"

"Yes," the man drawled. He removed his hand and stood up. "I even expect you'd make a good ally, if you were a handful of years older," he added, speaking a bit more to himself than to her while rubbing the stubble on his chin.

"Neato torpedo!" Nyancy squealed in delight, stomping her feet while she ran in place. "Didja hear that, Mr. Snowball? I've got a talent! A for real one!"

Mr. Snowball meowed enthusiastically.

"Say, Mister-"

"_Doctor_," he said, raising a finger. He splayed his fingers once again and placed them on his chest."Doctor Animo."

"Doctor Animo," she repeated. "What were you doing with all these kitties?"

"Ah, this? I was merely calling them to enlist them in my army," he said very casually.

Confusion overtook Nyancy's face. "An army... of kitties?" She looked around at the group surrounding her and the Doctor. They were mostly mangy, scrawny looking strays. She tried to imagine him leading them into any sort of battle and failed.

Before he could open his mouth to speak again, a sharp call cut through the air.

"_Nan~cy!_"

Her mother's stern voice caused Nyancy to stiffen. "Oh no! Mom! I totally forgot. She's gonna blow a gasket if she finds us in here, Mr. Snowball!" She turned to the stranger and waved her hands frantically. "I gotta go, Doc!"

She and Mr. Snowball ran to the alley entrance way. She waved while looking behind her. "Catch ya some other time! Thanks for the info!"

Doctor Animo waved lightly back at her. The cats once again moved toward him, now that Nyancy's influence had dropped.

Gulping, Nyancy slid around the corner of the brick building and inched her way back toward the parking lot, hoping her mother hadn't seen her come out of a dingy, dark, garbage-filled alley. With a stranger in it, no less. Although he wasn't really a stranger any longer. He was _Doctor Animo_.

Mr. Snowball mewed. Nyancy picked him up and began to walk back toward the car. "This is still your fault!" He meowed again, fussily. "I don't care if we learned some cool things and met a friend! We're still in _gigantic _trouble! You think Mom is just gonna forgive and forget?"

"Nancy Amelia Louise Chan!"

"Middle named! _Twice!_ We are _so_ in trouble." Mr. Snowball gave a few low meows. Nyancy gulped again, seeing her mother looking fit to be tied. "I can explain, Mom! Really I can! Mr. Snowball... he was chasing a bird! Yeah, a bird!" Her voice lowered to a whisper. "You _are_ taking the brunt of this! Don't argue with me!" She spoke in a normal tone again, "And I chased him, and he-he—I mean we—didn't mean to-"

"No excuses," her mother said, folding her arms. "Do you have any idea how many Trust Points you just lost, young lady?"

"...A lot?" Nyancy lowered her eyes. Her mother's face said everything. "Does this mean we're not going for ice cream?"

Her mother continued to stare in silence for a few moments. "Ice cream, or Trust Points?"

Nyancy and Mr. Snowball exchanged glances. "Trust Points are overrated, Mr. Snowball," she whispered into his ear. He meowed softly in response. "Ice cream!"

Back in the car, Nyancy hugged Mr. Snowball to her chest, kicking her legs in the air. Despite all the trouble, she felt a sense of elation.

"Hey, Mom, you know how you keep saying me talking to cats has no basis in reality? Well, guess what! I just learned today! That... zoo... _zoopathy_... is a real thing! And only an extremely low percentage of the human population has it."

"Oh? And where did you hear this?"

Nyancy blinked, realizing she couldn't exactly tell her mother where—or should she say, _who_—she'd gotten the info from. Her eyes darted back and forth. Mr. Snowball meowed. "Uuuuuh, the internet!"

"Nancy, dear, you know you shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet."

"But it's true, Mom!" Nyancy rolled her eyes and huffed. Her mother would never understand. But at least she had one person out there who did. She signed heavily, wondering how many others were out there like her and Doctor Animo. Maybe if she worked her brain muscles, so to speak, she could really do something worthwhile with her special talent one day. "And I told you, it's _Nyancy_."


End file.
